Clash of Eagles Read Free Page A

coming.’ ” He struck his steel chest plate with his fist, making an impressive clang. “She will tell the tribes we are mighty and shall not be stopped. We will pass through their lands and onward to the west.”
    The Powhatani quacked and popped at Sisika, relaying Marcellinus’s message. He continued: “If the tribes allow us passage, we will spare them. But if they resist, if any more of my men die in these cowardly sneak attacks, we will kill every man, woman, and child, every deer and bird, and the land will be silent and broken after our passing. She must tell them this or their blood will be on her head.” Marcellinus jabbed a finger toward her, and she flinched. “On
you,
Sisika. We will wipe them from the earth because of
you.
”
    As Fuscus finished his translation, Marcellinus held the woman’s gaze, stern and unblinking. She stared back. Her deep brown eyes were very disconcerting.
    She babbled while Marcellinus waited. One of his soldiers languidly drew his pugio, a short dagger, and poked the Powhatani from behind. The word slave yelped and said, “Sisika will do this, tell tribes Praetor words.”
    She had certainly said more than that. “And …?”
    “And, but, land of Iroqua, very savage, very hurt. Men of harsh.”
    “And?”
    “And once past Iroqua, west, is then great city, people of Hawk and Thunderbird. These will fall on you and … burn, cut off your hair, laugh.”
    The city the Norsemen had told them of, perhaps. Marcellinus’s interest quickened. Now he was getting somewhere. “This Great City has gold?” He showed Sisika the ring on his finger, the plate on his table, the small statues of his lares, his household gods. “Gold?”
    Sisika reached for one of the statues, and Marcellinus had to slap her hand away. Her eyes flared, and for a frozen moment he thought shemight actually hit him back, guaranteeing her instant execution. Instead she turned to Fuscus and spoke.
    “She ask who these toy persons are.”
    “They are not toys. Ask her about the gold.”
    Fuscus tried again, pointing anew to the various objects, but the answer was clear in her demeanor. She didn’t understand gold’s significance. She had never seen it before.
    Fuscus looked nervous. “She say no gold.”
    “And how far to the city?”
    “Far and far. She not know.”
    Of course she didn’t. How could she?
    “All right,” said Marcellinus. “Enough. Get them out of here. Wait outside with them until I come.”
    He turned as his guards manhandled the captives out of his tent. “Well, so much for that. What d’you think?”
    “That your soft heart will be the death of you.” Aelfric stood comfortably at the rear of the Praetorium tent, arms folded.
    “Likely enough,” said Marcellinus.
    Aelfric shrugged. “Not bad, to send the woman on ahead, though the Iroqua will probably cut her down before she gets twenty miles.”
    “She made it here. She can make it back.”
    “Perhaps.”
    Marcellinus walked to the tent door. “Did Sigurdsson return yet?”
    “None of the scouts did. I’ll bring ’em to you right away when they do.”
    “Hmm.”
    “Don’t fret,” said his tribune dismissively, walking past him out of the tent. “Our Norsemen can rip the arse out of any ‘men of harsh’
this
sorry land might throw at ’em.”
    Strictly speaking, they weren’t yet Roma’s Norsemen. The Imperator Titus Augustus had shut down the Viking raids on the coasts of Britannia thirty years ago, gobbling up Scand for the Imperium and acquiring every Dane and Geat and Sami clear up to Ultima Thule. But these daysa nation had to live loyally within the Pax Romana for two hundred years before its people were granted full citizenship.
    By the calendar of the Christ-Risen that Aelfric’s people and most of the Norse used, it was A.D. 1218. It was a full 1,971 years since the founding of Roma,
Ab Urbe Condita,
and it would be the year 2100 by the Roman reckoning before every new Scand child would enter